Fatalities At Everest

“I just got this in an email. It's about the Lincoln Hall rescue by Dan Mazur. Dan came to Redding a few months ago with his presentation on the rescue, great show.

There is a new book about the rescue, called "Dead Lucky".

Here is a link to an interview on Dateline, with Hall and Mazur, about the rescue and the aftermath.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13464475

It's called Everest Survivor and it's the second story on the page.
last edited: 7/21/07 2:23:43 PM”

“Thanks Mtnsteve”

“Cool article. Thanks”

“Nice article. Am I the only one who thinx that saving a life on Everest ain't as black and white as the article portrays?

Are you kidding me? You spend 2 years planning, perhaps some less, fitty grand (for the trip alone, not counting time off from work, away from family, ect.), and you stop an hour and a half from the summit for somebody needing an escort down. You cain't make that call "down here"! My money lies on the fact that they got some behind, and it was too risky taking the top. Might as well drag a dude down, particurly if there's several of you.

Call me a skank, but I make that call only on the summit.”

“reaching the summit would never heal the wounds i would live with if i didn't at least try. frankly, i probably would be unable to continue even if i came across a corpse, yet alone an injured or exhausted climber. i guess this is at the core of why i'll never climb everest, despite a strong desire to do so. if this is what it takes to get to the top of this mound of rock then i don't have it in me. the only reason i haven't written it totally off is because i refuse to believe all the stories i read are really representational of the people that take on this challenge, but i could be wrong.”

“I have forgotten the name of the guy... but a link was posted here for his vid.. anyway.. in his presentation he said it was not so much lack of caring that drove the decision to leave people as much as a physical inability to do anything but move your own butt where it needed to go. He was the guy who survived almost freezing to death up there. Bunches of others, including a good friend died. Somebody knows who it is and posted the link to the vid.”

“Jimmy san I thank you're making this a black and white issue. The only way for you successfully climb Everest (and that's if all the stars line up perfectly for you and the weather was great, you were great, and all other conditions were great), is to be one'a the first teams up. Otherwise there would be numerous ppl for your heroism to kick in. If you couldn't be one'a the first guys or teams up, you're just spending lotsa dough and time to save somebody, ultimately.

I'm not saying to heck with everyone, I'm just saying it's obvious that these guys are glamorizing the reason they didn't touch summit. They did not give up summit touch to pull a guy down, as is their story.

I'm curious to know tho, are these guys semi-regulars, like are they guides, or ppl that have the money or expectations to be coming back?? If so then I can see more clearly their heroism. A joe like me could only go once, so saying the conditions were right and I could possibly touch summit, I cannot honestly tell you what my heroism (or lack thereof) would be in that situation.

And Jimmy I have to ask are your statements more or less idealistic moral chatter? I mean no disrespect, I just cannot see how you can be so touchy-feely, while being honest. Perhaps tho, you know much more than I about the top of the world.”

“Beck Weathers is the guy I was mentioning above. There is a video of his presentation on the net somewhere. It is tascinating. I won't ever get up Everst for two reasons.. I don't care. and I don't have the money to blow on something I don't care about. By the time you get up there you probly can't _see_ diddly any way.”

“Here's something unique and gruesome about Everest - photos of the dead bodies which remain on the mountain:

http://imgur.com/gallery/rkRAk”

“I knew there were bodies up there just didn't think someone would post them. Interesting to see the positions the bodies are in”

“Maybe someone wants to make people think twice before joining the summit traffic jams.”

“Whoa that's pretty cool. On my thru-hike a guy who'd thru'd the AT and the PCT had tried to summit Everest the year before his public slide show. Among his permanent Everest inhabitants was a really neat pic into the open door to a small tent, where a dead guy was sitting up with crossed arms looking at you from the beyond with his open eyes. Guy had a wee bit of a smile on his cracked lips ....... I wish I had a huge poster of this tent guy.”

“Green Boots would be a worthy trail name”

“Morbid, but I couldn't look away”

“If those pictures make some people think twice, then it is certainly good to show those photos. It's okay though if some fool kills them selve on a mountain. As long as no one else has to pay the price for the vainness of trophy peak hunters.”

“There is no vainness in attempting to reach the top.

Living in Minnesota, in the Republic of Panama and on a ship in the Bering Sea off the coast of Siberia in typhoons with winds 115 to 125 mph and with seas running at 60 to 70 feet was all part of life and work. I looked at each situation as nothing more than an attempt to survive a challenge. Some of us succeed and some don't.

Survive: 1. To remain alive or in existence. 2. To carry on despite hardships or trauma.

No guts, no glory.”

“I like that there's a village of the dead atop Everest, indeed it does make for a more glorious achievement, and a superbly more interesting planet. Tho I will never have an opportunity to ascend such heights, the world is a much better place for me that those lofty heights exist. A'course the same can be said of the Red Light District in Amsterdam and fonkey-ducking in Tijuana..... but I digress....”

“A man who runs into a fire to save another life is doing something a can applaud. Compared to that a man climbing a mountain for the sake of a trophy is vain. But I say, he may do so "as long as no one ELSE has to pay the price for their vainness". Really, I don't care much about those dead. They died doing something they wanted to do. They don't seem to complain about their condition.”

“Lmao, ye I guess nobody ever heard any uv'em complainin'.”

“You can't seriously compare the Red Light District of Amsterdam with climbing the Everest! You obviously have never been to the damn airport in Amsterdam! The signage to the termianls is infernal.”

“hmmm.... well yur rite I ain't never been in the ""damn""Amsterdam airport....

Izit anything like the tram terminus of the Matterhorn?(speaking of great mountains)

Tourists cain't drive to the awesomest town of Zermatt, basecamp for the Horn. So you park somewhere, in some other lil town, and tram up to Zermatt. Literally right where you exit the tram into the cute town is a glassed wall-poster, bigger than the size of a family van. It shows a bedroom scene of two obvious queers in their tity-whity drawers, one sitting in the bed, with huge letters in German, that says NO BLOOD AND SEMEN IN THE MOUTH. It's right there in front of kids and women and old people and everyone! In one corner of the ad is a large pizza-sized condom..... I forgot the name.

That kinda infernal, Euro?”

“Are you naked while posting this?”

“LMAO Euro, as it just so happens ........”

“............. no.”

“Wait, is it the Aids prevention ad that you object or that it depicts a homosexual pair?”

“Aids kills far more people in a day than the Everest ever has. So, yes, I am all for it to address it so open in public. Aids kills old people, women and, yes, kids too. It concerns ALL sexually active age and gender groups. Aids isn't nice that way.”

“Well I'm not sure anyone exists opposing Aids prevention, ...butt ...... the ad could'a been run without the homos. You makes my point, Aids kills erbody, don't gotta go showing all the young kiddies 2 young men in their skivies in the bedroom, with a condom, knowwhutImean? This type of ad would be just fine in Castro tho.”

“Anyway.
Say, it sounds like you have been in Zermatt not too long ago?”

“Makes me not want to climb it.”

“If it was easy, everyone would do it. If it were entirely safe, more people would try.”

“I shore wisht Euro, if I'da been there not too long ago I'da looked you up. We left Italy about 7 years ago, but if I were rich I'd raise my offspring in N Italy, S France, or Croatia.

If I ever got the chance, I'd make a go at Everest. I'd wait til the kids were on up outa school tho. But if it costs forty or fitty grand, screw that, them kinda greens would buy one of my kids a fairly nice foreclosure.

I do have a pretty cool Lafuma pack that's lived at Base Camp and been to Camp 1 tho. Got it from a medtech that spent some time there training and volunteering, some group footed his bill to work there for a season. He's a doc by now, if he made it thru his first year of medschool.”

“Well, that image of the Zermatt train station sounded so fresh and vivid, I was wondering if you had been looking at it just a few days ago. In that case you would be only 1.5 hrs away from Bern train station.”

“Ye I know, tho I cain't remember what my wife wanted at the store, I remember TONS and TONS of minute details of our European living..... she's like wtf ?

I'll be an old man crappin' my pants and forgetting who these pesky kids are that keep visiting me, but our years in Europe will prolly be crystal clear, hehe.”

“Chile - Like anything, one has to prepare. work at it and accept your own limitations.”

“It's not your limitations that are the only concern. Someone with you may have limitations that were unforeseen or even caused by an accidental fall or misstep. Then you have to leave that person behind or you will die. That's why I wouldn't to it. It's a total gamble no matter how prepared you are.”

“I find that poster the Ape Man describes rather disturbing. In the scene implied by the picture, the mouth is not the riskiest orifice.
last edited: 6/07/13 4:48:15 PM”

“I love reading stories about people climbing in the Himalaya because it requires so much mental & physical fortitude. I'm not interested - too much hardship for too many weeks on end.

I seriously considered climbing McKinley, which I think is within my ability. It would cost me about $10,000 and a month of vacation to freeze my ass off for at least 21 straight days. I decided to climb Mt. Rainier 4 times instead.”

“I think Dick Bass' account in Seven Summits of his Everest summit day gives good insight to how people die on Everest. The world-class athletes who regularly climb it make it look easy, but it's more than a regular guy can do. Last summer I met a guy who climbed Everest a half dozen times - he also ran from Paradise to the top of Rainier and back in 4.5 hours, so not a normal human being.

By accounts, David Sharp was willing to die on Everest because he couldn't live with telling people he'd attempted it but not made it to the top.”

“I'm lost on risky orifices.......

Toe I'd like to know your circle of peeps, they sound pretty cool.”

“It cost me $1800 to meet that guy - he's a guide for IMG. My lead guide also guides Everest (a particle physicist before becoming a guide) and the stories over dinner were outstanding.

My circle of friends are volunteer wilderness rangers in the Los Padres NF, and they are pretty cool.”